Opinion: No flip-flop flaps for Arnold Schwarzenegger; he likes ‘em

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In politics, ‘flip-flop’ is considered the equivalent of two four-letter words -- but not by Arnold Schwarzenegger. If anything, the California governor says, politicians should flip-flop more frequently.

‘Flip-flopping is getting a bad rap, because I think it is great,’ he said during an interview taped last week and broadcast Sunday on ABC’s ‘This Week.’ ‘Someone has made a mistake. I mean, someone has, for 20 or 30 years, been in the wrong place with his idea and with his ideology and says, ‘You know something? I changed my mind. I am now for this.’

‘As long as he’s honest or she’s honest, I think that is a wonderful thing. You can change your mind,’ he said. ‘I have changed my mind on things, and there is nothing wrong with it.’

As a politician, Schwarzenegger has tried to avoid hard-line positions on the right or the left, but he noted that winning presidential primaries -- appealing to a party’s core voters, in other words -- may require candidates to veer to the extreme.

But now that he has enough delegates to become the GOP nominee, John McCain ‘hopefully’ will ‘wander a little more to the left,’ Schwarzenegger said. As for McCain’s Democratic counterpart, Barack Obama, ‘what he has done consistently has been very much to the left, and he’s now more and more going to the right.’

‘You think that’s smart,’ said host George Stephanopoulos.

‘That’s what they have to do,’ Schwarzenegger replied.

-- Leslie Hoffecker